


ghoul

by BelladonnaWyck, YouAreMyDesign



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Blood & Gore, Bottom Hannibal Lecter, Bottom Will Graham, Cannibalism, Canon - Typical Violence, Creampie, Dark Past, Dark Will Graham, Dehumanization, Ghouls, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Horror, M/M, Manipulative Will Graham, Murder, PTSD, Past Abuse, Possessiveness, Rough Sex, Serial Killer, Switching, Top Hannibal Lecter, Top Will Graham, Trauma, Violence, Will Graham Knows, barbed tongue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaWyck/pseuds/BelladonnaWyck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouAreMyDesign/pseuds/YouAreMyDesign
Summary: For the ReverseBang: Hannibal's sister is killed and eaten by a group who are running unnatural experiments on humans, essentially creating human ghouls. Hannibal hunts them down and kills them, displaying and eating them as the Ripper. When Will Graham is put on the case, what new revelations will he find?
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 130
Collections: Hannigram_Reverse_Bang_2020





	ghoul

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> This story was based off the lovely artwork from [Dragonessenoire!](https://twitter.com/dragonessenoire/status/1289240957989187585?s=20)
> 
> Thanks for a great prompt and wonderful art pieces and for letting YAMD and I go wild!

“This guy’s a monster.”

Will presses his lips together, eyeing the scene with a carefully neutral expression. It’s the latest in a long line of them, a scourge that came for Baltimore with a vengeance and hasn’t let up since. The frequency is almost impressive, especially considering how brutal and complex the crime scenes are.

“Monsters don’t plan ahead,” is all he can say in reply, earning an aggravated glare from Jack, beside him. Will ignores it; it’s pretty par for the course these days. As if Will is personally responsible for every new victim and murder. 

Will steps forward, his eyes lingering on the corpses in front of him. It’s a set of three men, all splayed out in a mimicry of Da Vinci’s  _ Vitruvian Man, _ in a circle, so that their toes touch each other, their arms outstretched as though reaching.

One of them has had his tongue and lower jaw removed, the mangled edges of his cheeks and neck baking in the bright sun. The second, his chest is cracked and spread open, revealing his hollow chest cavity, lacking his heart. The third was split apart neatly, and while Will can’t tell on sight if he’s missing anything, he’s sure there is something lacking, here.

The Ripper is not one to let good organ meat go to waste.

All three of the men have been castrated. Neatly, again, with no additional blood splatter around the scene. They were found in a warehouse on the docks, by the nighttime security guard. But he can tell they weren’t killed here, otherwise there would be a lot more blood.

Will tilts his head and kneels down by the man missing his heart. “The castration is new,” he notes.

“Escalation?” Jack asks.

Will presses his lips together and shakes his head. “No,” he says, certain and low. “If he did it out of anger, it would be more violent, less perfect. It’s the first time he’s done this publicly, but he took his time and made sure he did it right. It’s almost….” He hesitates, before finally settling on the word; _ “Curious.” _

Like he wanted to see what would happen, what he might find. As if he expected to find something unusual. Will doesn’t say that last part.

He rises to his feet, peeling off his gloves. “Do we have any I.D. or history on the victims?”

Jack hums, thumbing through the pages of his little notebook. “Alan, Lou, and Nick Petrovich,” he says. “Brothers.”

Interesting. 

“We’re working on getting records of any next of kin, and their addresses.”

“Address,” Will corrects. He gestures to the bodies. “They were all reported missing at the same time. The Ripper can’t be in three places at once.”

“He could have taken them separately, and killed them together,” Jack tells him. Will nods but knows instinctively that that wasn’t the case. The Ripper is hardly so disjointed, or sloppy - he kills single victims, or couples that have some connection to each other. He doesn’t delight in the capture; it’s the chase, the torture, the kill that he relishes. He wouldn’t go out of his way to collect more than one victim from separate locations if he didn’t have to.

“Call me when you get the preliminary.” Will steps away, brushing his hands down his jeans to rub away some of the chill in the air. Winter has come early to Baltimore, and the scene has been disturbed by snowmelt; he doubts they’ll find anything, even if it hadn’t been the Ripper. 

“Where are you going?” Jack’s voice is accusatory, a scornful and dismissive fatherly sound. 

Will points at his watch, a haughty smirk on his lips at Jack’s long-suffering sigh. He loves when he gets to claim petty victories. “Court mandated therapy, Jack. Time to go see the good doctor.” 

\---

Will has a tendency to be precisely on time, one of the ways he tries to claw back some of his autonomy and control, a way to protest the fact that his presence is even required here. 

Today, however, he is early, and has been waiting for several minutes when Hannibal finally opens the door to his office. 

“Hello, Will.” 

“Doctor Lecter.” Will brushes past him and walks straight to the ladder leading to the mezzanine, brimming with restless energy. He knows he’s being rude, but his skin feels too tight around his hollowed-out bones and he needs to  _ move.  _

“What did you see?” 

A few seconds pass in silence before Will shakes himself clear of the cobwebs of his thoughts and looks up at Hannibal with a confused furrow etched into his brow. “It’s a Ripper kill, but  _ not.  _ It’s messy and compulsive, he tried something new for the first time and then displayed the result in public. It changes his profile, all of my expectations.” He doesn’t even catch the slip  _ my expectations,  _ until it’s already out and fluttering around their heads like some sort of bloodthirsty shrike, tearing into all of his most exposed parts.

“What was so different about this scene that you believe he’s grown lax?” Hannibal extends his arm in offering, gesturing towards the chairs they usually inhabit for these conversations. 

Will ignores him at first, continuing to pace. “He castrated them, for starters. Which is  _ new.  _ It’s a break from his habit which I personally believe indicates he isn’t pathological and never has been. It isn’t a compulsion for him, which makes him all the more dangerous and unpredictable.” 

“What does dear uncle Jack think of your conclusions?” 

It’s an innocent enough question, but Will huffs out a frustrated breath of air and moves across the room to throw himself into his usual seat. Hannibal settles into the one across from him, all graceful lines and propriety, and crosses his left ankle over his right knee as he waits for Will’s reply. “Honestly? I think he just sees it as a natural escalation. All serial killers escalate, that’s what they  _ do.  _ But the Ripper isn’t a typical case.” 

Hannibal hums - a gentle sound, for Will to bite at or ignore as he wishes. Deeply entrenched in the aftereffects of the kill, burned onto the backs of his eyelids, he chooses to ignore it. He is in no mood to sate Hannibal’s quest for his attention, not yet.

“No, he’s not,” Hannibal finally says, when Will remains silent, his elbows on his knees, fingers laced and hanging between them, his eyes on the backs of his knuckles. He thinks of pushing his hands deep into the cavity of the third man who’d had his belly ripped open. Thinks of curling his hands behind the first man’s jaw and tearing through skin with just the bite of his nails. Thinks, as he turns his hands up, of how powerfully a heart might twitch and shiver against his palms.

His mouth goes dry, and he forces both the thoughts and his lungful of air out with a single breath.

He lifts his eyes. Hannibal is staring at him, which isn’t new - he marks Will’s twitches and shivers like a cat might watch fish in a tank, endlessly curious, head tilted. The light in his office is both overly warm and low, closer to candles than anything fluorescent. Will doesn’t know if he started doing that when Will claimed he was suffering from headaches, or if he simply prefers a dimmer space when the sun sets, but correlation and causation are rarely separate when it comes to men like Hannibal Lecter.

“I’m intrigued by it,” he says, lifting his fingers to his mouth, tapping the edges of his nails against his lower lip. He lifts his eyes up and to the left, towards the ladder stretching up to the balcony that borders half of Hannibal’s office. Hannibal doesn’t move, but his silence is heavy and makes Will feel like his bones are hollow. “The evolution. I feel like….”

“Yes, Will?” Hannibal murmurs. “What do you feel?”

“I feel like he’s expecting to find something,” Will says, finally, having mercy on Hannibal’s evident interest. It’s pleasing, satisfying, to hold the attention of a man like him. Their eyes meet again, and Will hums, parting his fingers to drag them up his cheeks, into his hair. He sighs. “He won’t.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He tried something new because whatever is making him take what he takes, it’s not enough for him. He’s looking at pieces, not the whole picture.” He laughs, shaking his head, and tilts his chin up to stare at the ceiling. “Just like me, he’s leaving pieces behind for me to figure out myself, if he’s even thinking about people like me, or Jack, or anyone else that’s tried to hunt him down.”

Hannibal doesn’t say anything to that. His silence is telling - whether he agrees with Will or not isn’t part of this process, this verbal test, reaching blindly in the dark. This is for Will, to walk forward with his eyes closed until he meets a wall he needs help breaking down, or steps into the light of his revelation.

Still, Hannibal’s dark eyes shine in the low light, with something dangerously close to amusement. “If the Ripper is even partially aware of you, as his hunter, do you think he’s deliberately leaving these puzzle pieces behind?”

Will frowns. Hums. Sucks in a breath through his teeth and winces at the sting of air over his dry tongue. “No,” he replies, high, idle. As though listening to a child forcing him to make note of the shapes of fluffy clouds. “I don’t think he finds me that interesting.”

“Do you?” Hannibal asks.

“Do I what?”

“Find him interesting.”

Will winces again, instinct telling him to deny it, to shake his head and curl his shoulders in as he would around someone like Jack, who sees just the right amount of all the wrong things. He meets Hannibal’s eyes, his placid expression giving away nothing. But even the cool, untouched surface of a lake hides monsters.

“The  _ puzzle _ is interesting,” he settles on.

Hannibal smiles, and he inclines his head, as though he can see right through Will’s thin attempt at a diversion. Hannibal stands, and that’s the only indication Will needs that their session is at its end. He watches as the other man crosses the room and opens a cabinet that Will knows houses wine and now, because of Will’s affinity for it, whiskey. Albeit whiskey that Will would never have even considered prior to meeting a man like Hannibal Lecter; his life prior to meeting the good doctor had been one full of rotgut and bottom shelf. 

He wonders at how long he was lost in his visions of blood and hearts and pulsing, thrumming life held in his hands and spilling through his fingers if his session is already over. 

“Do you like puzzles, Will? Is that what drew you to the field of forensic study?” Hannibal places two crystalline glasses onto the small table that essentially functions as a bar cart by his cabinet, gently drops a whiskey stone into each and then pours two fingers of whiskey into them. Will usually drinks his whiskey straight and from the bottle, but he allows Hannibal these small indulgences. 

The presence of the alcohol means that whatever they discuss next truly will be just  _ conversations,  _ none of it professional or an official part of his therapy. He can’t ignore the fact that it pleases him when Hannibal chooses to keep him like this, or invites him to informal - at least for Hannibal - private dinners for two at his home. It feels good to be  _ seen,  _ and to be understood. He thinks Hannibal may understand him better than anyone else he’s ever known. 

“Uh, I wouldn’t necessarily say puzzles are what hooked me. I saw my first dead body at a pretty young age, formative years were spent processing that and I was just always a curious kid, especially after.” 

Hannibal slightly raises a brow which, on any other person would be tantamount to a screaming declaration of  _ tell me more,  _ but on Hannibal it’s barely even a facial movement.

Will continues on anyway. “I was six or seven, I think. It was hot, it was always hot in Biloxi, and I was walking all around the docks and the woods that surrounded them while dad was working.  _ Keeping myself entertained,  _ as he always warned me. It was bloated, body floating and the head caught in some willow tree roots all along the edge of the water.” Will pauses, the images flooding into his brain as though he is standing in front of the scene as he speaks. “The eyes were filmed over, grey. I remember thinking they don’t ever show that in movies, the eyes still always look like eyes, like  _ people.  _ But these weren’t human, they were something  _ other.” _

“Corneal clouding. It’s common in recently deceased bodies. What did your father say when you informed him?” Hannibal asks, and Will feels more than a little like he’s being led somewhere, guided. It’s heavier handed than Hannibal usually is and Will finds it curious. 

“Nothing. I didn’t tell him, didn’t tell anybody. We moved away from Biloxi for several years after that, hopping all across Louisiana until we finally went back to Mississippi. And by then, even if they had found him years before, I never heard about it.” 

“Aren’t you curious? Did you ever consider seeking out information?” 

“Not even a little bit. I wasn’t anything to that man and he wasn’t anything to me. Why dwell on a shitty situation neither of us could change? He’s dead and I’m, well, I’m  _ me. _ ” 

Hannibal seems inordinately pleased at Will’s proclamation, but he moves them on to another topic of conversation just as fluidly and gracefully as he navigates a room or dominates a kitchen. 

Will feels like Hannibal has peeled back a layer of his skin to look underneath, and finds that he doesn’t particularly mind the sensation.

\---

Clouded corneas, a subtle metallic sheen consistent with his past research. Overdeveloped canines, evolved to rip into and tear living flesh. A slightly abraded tongue, like that of a hunting cat, designed to strip meat from the bone.

Hannibal hums. He hasn’t been able to find much in the way of internal adjustment. The blood vessels and organs operate the same way. The livers, so far, have been unusually lean and efficient, and he theorizes that is to filter out proteins in human meat more easily, as their ancestors had in the paleolithic era. 

He places the newest acquisition of eyes into his jar, where several others have been collected so that he can monitor their decay. Even the ones taken as far back as a year have maintained much of their shape and the coloration of the iris, underneath the metallic filter, which he finds interesting. Clearly their bodies have been designed to negotiate with death, to live a little longer.

The heart is healthy, even though the scent of the creature’s fingers and his yellowing teeth suggest he had been a smoker. He hasn’t taken the lungs - he should have, to see if the bronchioles had been damaged by smoker’s lung. 

He purses his lips and considers his most recent acquisition: the threefold set of genitals he ripped from the creatures. Their flesh had been easy to split open and tear into, as easy as a typical human, and now three sets of genitalia sit in the basin. He stands, and crouches down by it, gloved fingers taking the largest and setting it down on a sterilized section of his workbench in his basement.

It appears relatively normal. Uncircumcised, which he expected, and heavy in his hands. He takes a scalpel and cuts down the vein at the bottom, peeling the halves back like butterfly wings to expose the innards. Notes the urethra, the cavernosal artery, the bulbs of muscle meant to contract during orgasm. They are a delicate pink on the inside, the same color as a tongue, he notes with some amusement. 

His head tilts as he pries the skin open further, careful not to rip anything, and cuts down to the beginnings of the sac, baring the fleshy muscle around the testicles. They appear healthy, and normal, as far as he can tell. It’s not impossible to think these creatures are capable of mating with humans.

They must be, he thinks, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them. In Hannibal’s long years, he has come across clusters of them almost everywhere, and they cannot all be traced back to a facility like the ones that attacked his family and slaughtered his sister.

He hums, testing the atrophy of the dead glans, the stiffness as he pushes delicate fingertips and thumbs against each muscle, ripping them from each other. They appear slightly larger than he would assume given the size of the penis itself, like muscles given steroids. Abundantly virile, perhaps. A female might have an excess of eggs and higher levels of hormones to ensure conception, and combined with powerful ejaculation, would increase the chances of successfully breeding.

He will need more data, of course, in addition to the other two he has collected. Will’s words ring in his head - pieces of a puzzle, he’s only been taking pieces. To this moment, he didn’t consider the notion of analyzing the body as a whole. Not only because so much meat would go to waste, but because dealing with these creatures requires efficiency and swiftness, and he often kills them quickly, harvesting after depending on his needs. Keeping an entire body is more difficult to hide, and he has tried to avoid doing it to prevent possible contamination or decay.

His gaze lingers on the jar of eyes, and he hums in consideration. Perhaps his fear of a body decaying too quickly to study is unfounded. There is, of course, a way to test that, and Hannibal is nothing if not curious.

\---

Will rubs his arms where they are held tightly around him, a long since ingrained self-soothing gesture that also functions to warm him as snow falls in fits and starts around them. He wishes he was still curled up in front of his fire with shitty whiskey and his dogs around him for company. Instead, he’s standing in the slush and experiencing a disturbing sense of deja vu. 

There is only one body this time, but it’s cut cleanly in half. Only the right side is at the scene, the eye closed almost peacefully where the long eyelashes cast spider leg shadows down its ashen cheek. It appears more like something from an anatomy book than an actual person anymore. 

The muscles are exposed in nearly delicate strips along the face and neck, pulled back to reveal the muscle beneath. The damage gets worse the further down the body Will’s eyes track. The leg has been peeled back enough to show the bone where it's been cracked in half to show the yellow marrow in the center. 

The foot has been splayed as wide as a hand, each metatarsal left in varying degrees of whole, taken apart like -. He laughs to himself. Like puzzle pieces. The ankle has been flayed, the broad band of Achilles tendon on display, completely intact but neatly severed from its anchors so that, even if the man were still alive, he would not be able to move his foot properly.

The bitter cold has helped preserve the body. There’s almost no signs of decay, no flies or maggots have come to reap the benefits of such a generous feast. Will approaches, eyeing the perfect split of the heart, cradled by lungs and ribcage. Despite the implicit sloppiness of a person’s insides, nothing has fallen out. It’s as though the man was cut with a cheese wire and immediately cauterized, pushed flat by glass so that everything remained perfectly in its place.

“Looks like you might have been onto something, Will,” Jack says from somewhere behind him. “This looks like he’s...studying something.”

Will hums.  _ Yes _ , he thinks. What an eager little beaver. He hides his smile behind the pretense of blowing into his hands to warm them.

“We have any update on the other half of the body?” he asks. He turns his head in time to see Jack make a vague, negative gesture. Alright, so the Ripper has started to invest himself in full case studies. That implies an increased confidence or desperation.

The notion of being desperate when compared to the Ripper sits oddly on Will’s shoulders, like an ill-fitting coat. It is not an emotion, a feeling, he normally equates with a killer like this. Even with how much extensive work was done to the body, every inch of it is methodically peeled apart like the models in that Body Worlds museum. It almost looks fake to him, like a diagram for someone to come along and learn from.

His eyes narrow, and he presses his knuckles to his cheeks, trying to warm them.

If not desperation, then confidence. He’s trying to solve a question for himself, a curious child tugging at the strings of a puppet to see which one makes which limb jerk. A cat testing gravity on hapless unattended dishes and pillows. 

“What do you think he did with the other half of the body?” That’s Beverly. Her breath mists in the cold air and her voice is heavy with the knowledge that, in this case, ignorance would probably be more blissful.

“Probably the same,” Will replies with a shrug. “More intense study. Somewhere he can...take his time.”

The way his tongue stumbles on the words, his breath catches, feels heavy in his chest, unsettles her. He can see it, though she does her best to shrug it off. Will Graham is weird, that’s no secret. He says weird shit and behaves oddly, that’s part of his charm. An unfortunate symptom of his extraordinary mental gifts.

He turns back to Jack. “I think there’s a connection between this man and the trio we found the other day. He’s choosing specific people for a specific reason. So far, mostly men, in a similar age range, but the last time he chose blood relatives. There’s a high chance this guy is related to them, somehow, as well.”

Jack nods. “We’ll look into it,” he says. Will presses his lips together and pulls the halves of his jacket tighter around his body. Normally the cold doesn’t bother him, except for a surface-level sting, but tonight it’s biting, chilling him down to his bones. It’s creating an odd instinct in him, to burrow deep into a nest and wait it out, to fill his belly with warm food and stay in the heat and the dark until he feels better.

He runs his tongue over the edges of his teeth, and sighs. He’s sure there’s a connection here, and he can’t shake the timeline. The half-body is literally a puzzle, two pieces separated and made to, eventually, fit back together. Every layer of skin and muscle and bone exposed like the most intricate 3D jigsaw. 

He took Will’s thought process to heart. Taking pieces wasn’t giving him answers, so he took a bigger one. “What are you trying to find?” he whispers to the body, to the wind, to the Ripper himself. Predictably, he receives no answer.

\---

Will sits across from Hannibal, fingers twitching anxiously against his knee. He’s a creature of motion and movement, and Hannibal has noted that he gets antsy during these conversations of theirs when he’s relegated to staying in his chair. __

Hannibal can still smell the crime scene on Will’s hair and clothes, permeating his office just as it had his basement at home. He crosses his legs, intentionally drawing Will’s eyes to the movement Hannibal permits himself while denying it to Will. He’d asked Will to try and stay seated and still for the duration of their session tonight, proclaiming it as a therapeutic approach when in all actuality he was simply curious if Will  _ could.  _ And even more whether he  _ would.  _

Will’s obedience is breathtaking to behold, but Hannibal has always sensed something razor-sharp and dangerous just beneath the surface, like Will is playacting at being a submissive, soft thing rather than being genuinely interested in following orders. He does it for Jack Crawford daily, probably performed just as beautifully for his father as a young person; and now he sits still and quiet while Hannibal observes him and it doesn’t hold the sense of power that Hannibal feels it would if it were  _ honest.  _

“Tell me about the crime scene, Will,” Hannibal prompts, leaning imperceptibly forward in his seat. Will’s level of understanding is fascinating, and Hannibal supposes he’s just as susceptible to the desire to be  _ seen and known  _ as anyone else, perhaps even more so. 

Will nods silently, seemingly contemplative and unhearing of Hannibal’s question. Hannibal wonders, sometimes, if Will has a mind palace similar to his own, though unique to Will’s particular brain and behaviors. The empath has a tendency to go deeply inward when he’s breaking down a case or evaluating a person. 

Hannibal is genuinely curious whether Will still sees his recent kills as  _ messy. _ He’s been harvesting these Ghouls for so long that it’s nearly become rote. He takes something different each time, something new to study so that he can better understand the creatures who took his family from him. He’d hardly consider them people at this point, their bodies always just slightly wrong when compared to a typical human form. 

He is disillusioned with the idea of taking parts one at a time, leaving Will and Quantico’s finest half of the body and taking the other home for further study. 

“The DNA work came back and confirmed my suspicion that he was related to the other three. The team was really shaken by something  _ off  _ they found in the blood, haven’t been briefed on exactly what yet. Apparently it’s a  _ you have to see this to believe it  _ sort of issue.” 

Hannibal hums, readjusting in his chair again and watching Will clench his fingers tightly to his own knees, knuckles going white from the pressure. “And what of the scene? What did you see when you looked this time?” 

“An impotent sort of rage coupled with reservation. He kills his victims slowly, taking what he needs from them and letting them die from the process rather than any sort of aggression or heavy-handedness.” 

“One might call robbing someone of their life to be rather  _ aggressive,”  _ Hannibal questions, smiling blandly when Will looks up at him finally. When he smiles, it’s with his teeth hidden behind the plush red of his lips, and Hannibal longs to see the bright bone-white of them, exposed and stained crimson. 

“It feels like he’s going through the motions at this point, like he is grasping for something.” Will moves now, just a simple crossing of his ankles but Hannibal’s eyes take it in greedily. “We found a contact in the victim’s phone, just one number saved. A Lucinda Smith. I’m meeting with her tomorrow to see if we can learn anything else about the man. He had no identification, his DNA wasn’t in the system. We only learned his name was Blake through her. This case grows more bizarre each day.” 

Hannibal lets that revelation sit in the air, lingering, before he finally rises to his feet. Their time is up, after all, and Will has much to do. “If you are needed back at the lab tonight, would you care for a raincheck on our dinner plans?”

“Sure. Maybe this weekend?” Will moves, and Hannibal is certain he hears him breathe a soft sigh of relief at the motion after so long being still. 

“Of course. Do take care, Will. I’m sure I will speak with you before the weekend.” In truth, Hannibal is content with letting Will go for the evening, he has much to consider and a new path to pursue in this  _ Lucinda Smith.  _

\---

Despite his extensive study, Hannibal has yet to encounter a female of the species. He’s suspected for a long time that there must be some, simply because most of the facilities where these creatures were made had been closed or locked down, and he was certain there weren’t more being made currently. Blessed with long lives and enhanced survival instincts he had inherited from his diet of consuming them, they didn’t die by something as plebian as natural causes, and therefore there was only a certain amount he imagined had ever been made.

But life, as they say, finds a way. It will be interesting to see if this Lucinda Smith, like her brothers and cousins, has any discerning marking or alterations in her physicality that would suggest the ability to make offspring that shared her genetically altered makeup.

It isn’t difficult to locate her. She works in the public sector, for the Government, which means her place of business is listed on the Baltimore County website. From there it’s just a matter of going to her place of work and following her home one night to learn her address. He doesn’t attack right away - that would be rushed and foolish of him, and eager though he is to study her, he doesn’t want to act too rashly.

He spends the next day following her. He normally keeps his Thursdays light to allow time to plan any parties or grand meals he wants to make, and Fridays are often left open to allow him to hunt and harvest as he sees fit.

So he watches her. From a cursory glance, she appears normal. Her hair, dirty blonde and cropped short in a severe bob around her angular face, lacks no marked sheen. His eyes, blue and wide, don’t flash with the metallic second lid he has observed in the others. When she smiles, he sees no fangs or abnormally sharp teeth. He wonders if this is because she is female, or because she is human.

A single whiff of her scent confirms it for him: no, she is certainly not human. Ghouls have a particular scent, like old wood and damp earth, like coffins in a graveyard; slightly musty, not altogether pleasant but nothing a regular human would notice unless they had a sensitive nose.

He follows her home from work on Friday night. He watches her enter her home and wander around the front rooms, shedding her suit jacket, ruffling her hair from the straightened flatness she had ironed it into. Watches her pour herself a glass of wine and linger in the living room, watching television. He waits until the hour grows late, and she turns the light off, heading deeper into the house. No light comes on in the upper rooms, where he would assume her bedroom would be, or at least a hallway light.

He frowns when the night grows older, and still, there is no movement. A quiet discontentment settles over the place like an exposed glade will tense and go still in the presence of a hunter. Some instinct in him, call it gut or something sharper than that, raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

He gets out of his car and freezes when, impossible and light on the breeze, he detects another scent as familiar to him as his own.  _ Will _ .

Relying solely on sharply honed predator instincts to keep his feet moving beneath him, Hannibal drifts closer to the house. He rounds the corner, noticing the dry flowerbeds and the cobwebs in the corners of the windows. Lucinda isn’t home much, it would appear, the house feels like more of a front than it does a home. 

He approaches a window which is on the ground floor, wary of being caught prowling around this little house and called in by one of Lucinda’s neighbors. His prior observations tell him that Lucinda is reclusive by nature, and hasn’t made any effort to communicate with her neighbors whenever Hannibal is watching.

Unfortunately, silence breeds curiosity. He finds it affecting him as well - the house is very quiet. He didn’t see Lucinda go to bed.

He reaches out and feels along the windowpane, the bottom base of the window just barely cracked. From his pocket, he retrieves one of his scalpels, and eases the tip between the crack, turning it until it opens just a fraction further. His lips purse in displeasure at the notion of dulling his scalpel, but he brought others and should be able to perform his harvest successfully.

He works the window open until he is able to fit his fingers under it, and then further still. The window catches, a few inches from the bottom, and he huffs in annoyance, trying to force it up further still. It doesn’t budge.

No matter - he has prepared for this too. He steps back and takes out his small kit, a roll of lambskin holding his smaller, loose implements. He returns the scalpel to its slot and takes out what could only really be described as a melon baller - he has been using it to perform his enucleations. 

He works his arm back in and uses the stiff dome of the implement to shove at the little trapezoid latches keeping the window down, until he manages to push them in, and unlock them. The window slides open easily after that.

Smiling, warm with anticipation and triumph, he steps into the house.

Utter silence greets him - silence like that of a jungle when there is a jaguar prowling through the undergrowth. This silence is charged and ready, with bared teeth and a rumbling snarl.

He smells blood.

He smells Will.

He frowns.

The living room light comes on bright as a flash grenade, making him wince. He steps back and lifts an arm to shield his eyes, blinking rapidly as his vision, which is better than most and more adaptable, adjusts swiftly.

He sees, first, the blood. It is a wide pool and splatters on the backdrop of the stairs and the wall separating the living room from the dining room, like an exploded balloon of paint. He sees Lucinda, laid prostrate over an ottoman, her eyes wide and staring, mouth open in a silent scream.

Movement catches his attention, and he turns and sees Will.

He is as stained with viscera, organ matter, and blood as the wall. It’s easy to tell what made the gaping hole in Lucinda’s stomach, for in Will’s hands are clumps of fatty tissue and black bile, slick and spilling between his fingers as he devours her liver and the upper part of her intestines.

Will’s eyes are on him, and he smiles, and turns, lowering the dimmer on the living room light to a softer hue and saturation.

“Sorry about that,” he purrs. His voice sounds different when he’s eating from one of those creatures raw - different than how low and rough it gets when Hannibal feeds Will himself. Cooking them, it seems, affects him differently. “You’re late, Doctor Lecter.”

Hannibal swallows, at the sight of Will’s arched brow and crooked, dimpled,  _ fanged _ smile. “Forgive me,” he rasps. “I wasn’t aware we had an appointment.”

Will laughs like he has two voices. One of them, the voice of a man, one of them the snarl of a monster.

“Are you hungry?” he asks and holds his prize out in offering. Despite himself, Hannibal’s mouth floods with saliva, his stomach clenches in eagerness. “There’s plenty for both of us.”

Hannibal has always known that Will is violent, dangerous, even if the man had always seemed reluctant to admit it. But now, he can sense it in his bones like trees can sense an oncoming rain. He knows that if he crosses to Will, takes his offering and partakes in his kill with him that things will change. That he’ll be placing himself in Will’s realm of control. 

He finds that he isn’t as bothered by that idea as he once may have been. 

He closes the distance between them in a few short strides, unable to resist the pull of his perfect mate bathed in blood so thick it looks like tar against his skin under the low lighting. He doesn’t reach out, letting Will close the remaining gap, blood-drenched fingertips tracing the outline of his cheek before Will’s fingers curl in his tie, pulling him the remaining few inches forward. 

Will brings his bloody offering to Hannibal’s lips, offers it like some sort of ritualistic sacrifice to a god of old, and Hannibal’s mouth opens of its own volition, taking in the iron-rich meat of her half-consumed liver and chewing with the reverence it deserves. Not because of who it came from, but because of the vehicle of its consumption. 

Will’s fingers tighten further in Hannibal’s tie again once his hand is free of the liver, and suddenly warm, blood-slicked lips are on Hannibal’s mouth, copper bright and salt of the earth rich. Will kisses him like some people fight, with a fervor and a violence that causes Hannibal’s spine to straighten and his stomach to clench.  _ This,  _ he has wanted since the first time he met the empath in Jack Crawford’s office. 

“Get on the fucking couch, Hannibal,” Will growls against his mouth, giving one final nip to his bottom lip that wells blood fresh and thick to drip down Hannibal’s chin, staining his clothes irreparably.

Hannibal obeys, can’t possibly imagine an alternative while enraptured by the beauty of Will’s becoming. He’s resplendent, a victorious conqueror surveying his territory. Hannibal steps backward until his knees finally touch the blood-stained fabric of the couch; there’s blood everywhere here, the entire room drenched in scarlet. 

He settles into the cushion and feels his chest threaten to crack with how his lungs ache as Will climbs atop his thighs, settling himself comfortably in Hannibal’s lap and leaning in to bite at his bruised and swollen lips again. 

Hannibal’s shoulders hit the back of the couch as Will presses closer, crowding him and stealing his air. Will moves like a serpent, his body lithe and fluid, but in his chest, Hannibal can feel a rumbling purr like a pleased jungle cat. 

Before Hannibal can get a clearer look at the man currently pinning him, something shifts in Will’s hand, and then Will is slipping a  _ collar  _ around Hannibal’s neck, capturing his thundering pulse beneath the supple leather. He hears the  _ click  _ of a lead being attached, the sound centering him and he realizes Will is speaking to him.

“You’ll understand, baby, if I don’t fully trust you just yet. You were planning to kill me, after all,” Will’s voice is silky smooth, a housecat in a sunbeam. Hannibal melts further beneath him, trapped in the allure. 

“Not for quite some time now,” he argues, pulling a wide smile to Will’s lips, his teeth just slightly too crowded in his mouth to be fully human. It’s as Hannibal expected, then; Will at some point was a part of the experiments of the organization. Hannibal wonders if he even knows or if he simply thinks his predispositions are something dark and insidious in his mental makeup instead. He wants to know whether Will was always this way, or whether eating at Hannibal’s table is what finally kickstarted his evolution. 

“Normal people don’t say shit like that to each other and think it’s romantic, Hannibal,” Will laughs, and Hannibal’s eyes are drawn to the crimson red of his mouth, the blood staining his teeth and viscera caught between them. He wants to lick into Will’s mouth, so he does, pleased when Will allows it for several long seconds. 

Will finally pulls him away with his grip on the leash, and Hannibal is reminded of the leather against his neck. “We aren’t normal people, dear Will. Surely you know.” 

“I know enough,” is Will’s only reply before he’s shuffling far enough back to get Hannibal’s pants undone and down his thighs low enough that his cock springs out at the ready, already hard and leaking at the tip where his foreskin has dragged back. He’s been desperately aroused since he first saw Will standing beautiful and victorious over his kill. It  _ almost  _ feels like a shared hunt, and Hannibal can’t help but consider what a truly joint victory would feel like if this already feels like fire in his veins. 

He’s again pulled back to the moment when he feels the rough fabric of Will’s jean-clad thighs scrape against his own now exposed legs, his suit pants down around his knees, and threatening to fall down his legs to pool at his feet. Will keeps the leash in one hand and uses that same hand to wrap around Hannibal’s weeping cock, far rougher than Hannibal would usually be with himself. 

He lets out a hiss through his teeth at the sensation and Will laughs again, the sound layering like overlapping voices on a radio frequency. Will scrambles to get himself out of his jeans, kicking them somewhere to the side of the couch, and Hannibal has the errant thought that they’ll need to scour the room for evidence and most likely burn the house as well as everything they wore here tonight. 

Will’s trill of success draws a smirk to Hannibal’s mouth as his vicious boy gets himself back into position, grinding shamelessly against Hannibal’s cock. In all of his fantasies about the empath he’d never imagined things quite like this, never considered that Will would be so wanton and eager, so in control. 

“You’re going to fuck me, gonna fill me up.” Will leans closer to whisper the words against Hannibal’s ear, his breath warm against Hannibal’s exposed throat. Drawling; “And then, if you’ve been good, I’m going to fuck you right back, darlin’.” 

“I find that agreeable.” Hannibal tries to maintain a semblance of control, of decorum, but it only makes Will laugh again, louder and filling up the space between them until the air feels charged with electricity and tastes like ashes in his throat. 

“As if you have a choice,” Will purrs. He traps Hannibal’s earlobe between his teeth and tugs, making Hannibal shiver beneath him. His hands, helpless and searching for somewhere to grip, flatten on Will’s pale, strong thighs. Bunched in readiness, like a stallion in the starting box. Hannibal can’t even find it in him to protest Will’s arrogance, his confidence; “I only need to  _ suggest  _ a direction and you come running.”

He sounds pleased by that, which makes Hannibal smile. He turns his head, seeking another kiss that Will grants - chastely, teeth to Hannibal’s lips and hand wrapped within the leash scraping nails and knuckles against his jaw.

“Would you really deny me now, Hannibal?” Will presses. He is as much the birddog as the hunter, his lashes low over his dark eyes, which show Hannibal the same metallic sheen he has become used to seeing in the creatures he kills and consumes. 

Hannibal shakes his head, going quiet when Will tugs on the leash, tightening the grip of the collar, his airflow momentarily threatened. Will nudges his nose against Hannibal’s chin, forcing his head back, and Hannibal gasps when Will licks over his bared larynx, bulging up above the leather grip of the collar.

Will’s tongue is rough, like sandpaper. Like a hunting cat. Tiny pinpricks of painful sensation curl around the base of Hannibal’s skull and down his spine. He lets out a weak, breathy noise as Will shifts his weight and lets Hannibal’s cock grind between his legs, where he’s tight and dry.

Will reaches behind himself, wrapping his hand, slick with blood and bile, around Hannibal’s sensitive flesh. “I’ve thought about this for too fucking long,” he confesses, rough tongue and savage teeth held tight to Hannibal’s throat like a warning. “I hope you live up to my expectations.”

Hannibal can. He  _ will _ . He grips Will’s thighs tightly, as Will nudges his cockhead against Will’s hole. It’s going to hurt them both and Hannibal’s mouth feels too dry to swallow. Will arcs above him like a demon, ready to drag him down and throw him into the fire of their newfound understanding. Such transactions are made with blood and flesh. 

Will snarls and forces himself down, Hannibal’s cock piercing him suddenly. He grunts against Hannibal’s neck and bites around the collar, hard over Hannibal’s trachea. He bites like he intends to rip it clean out, and Hannibal’s entire body tenses with a mixture of instinctual fear and overwhelming arousal.

“Don’t fucking come,” Will demands. Hannibal is only barely inside him, Will’s body clamped tight and possessive, a tease and taunt and promise all in one. “Not yet. Don’t you dare.”

He sinks down another inch, releasing Hannibal’s cock once he’s thoroughly anchored. He tears at Hannibal’s suit jacket and through his shirt until he can touch bare skin. His nails feel too sharp, sharp as his teeth and tongue and eyes. Will is too dry on the inside and it only fills Hannibal with the compulsion to thrust in, deeper, to spill and soak his new mate and keep Will wet and open forever.

Will paws at his hair and pulls him back up, so their eyes can meet. His red teeth, golden-laced eyes, flushed cheeks. He looks like the monsters from Hannibal’s memories and nightmares. He looks like a savage creature from his dreams. 

Hannibal rears up and kisses him, moaning when Will’s barbed tongue licks in and behind his teeth, scratching the roof of his mouth. Hannibal tightens his hands and forces Will down onto him, his cock encased now in velvet heat. Despite Will’s eagerness, his body clearly didn’t mean to take so much so soon.

Will curses, claws at the nape of his neck above the collar, and pulls the leash until Hannibal has to break the kiss and fight for air. “You’re not in control, here,” he says darkly, daring Hannibal to protest.

Hannibal smiles. His mouth is sore from Will’s bites, and when he speaks his tongue tenderly touches the shredded roof of his mouth. He can taste his own blood and wonders what it would be like to mingle Will’s with his own, like adding water to whiskey, enhancing and changing the flavor.

“Of course not,” he purrs. Will’s eyes flash and his upper lip twitches back. 

Will doesn’t answer. His animal instincts demanded he feed, and now they are focused on much more immediate needs than a verbal bout. He yanks Hannibal back by his hair and bites at his jaw, another ricochet of pain making Hannibal growl and grip and thrust up in answer. Hannibal plants his feet and secures his handhold on Will’s jutting hips, forcing him to remain still, slightly raised on his knees. It’s clear Will is perfectly content for Hannibal to do all the work, to use him as something warm and tense to pleasure himself and spill inside.

But Will’s mouth, his hands, are far from passive. He claws Hannibal’s clothes to pieces and moans when Hannibal licks and sucks at his neck, desperate to cleanse him of Lucinda’s blood so he can taste the flushed, sweaty skin beneath without contamination. He will plant a collar of bruises to Will’s lovely throat, to match the leather one wrapped around his own neck.

He finally tastes the salt of Will’s flesh and doesn’t stop himself from biting down, taking his own pound of flesh and glutting himself on Will’s blood directly from the source. As it fills his mouth and pours down his throat he can taste the difference from an average human, can detect the subtle similarities it shares with the Ghouls Hannibal has hunted for what feels like his entire life, more than. 

A sharp, responding  _ slap  _ pulls a feral snarl from his bloodied mouth, his eyes cutting to Will’s and then to Will’s palm where it hovers in the air between him. The hit was hard enough to grind Hannibal’s teeth together, to draw blood from the torn inside of his cheek that joins the rest of the blood already in his mouth. He growls, low and warning, and Will  _ laughs.  _

“You  _ are not  _ in control here, Hannibal. You take what I give you, when  _ I  _ decide you deserve it.” The undulations of Will’s hips never cease, Will still taking his pleasure even as he puts Hannibal in his place like he’s nothing more than one of his pack. Hannibal wonders, aimlessly, how long it would take Will to train him; decides it most likely already has occurred if his current behavior is any indication. He feels alight with desire, a passion that is normally far more reserved within him spilling out too quickly for him to contain. His bones ache with the pressure and feel too big for his skin, threatening to break through his flesh like the stag’s antlers had pierced Cassie Boyle. He can’t close his eyes because he refuses to miss even a second of Will’s glorious preeminence, intoxicated on the scent of his prideful contentment.

Will leans closer to nuzzle along Hannibal’s bloodied cheek and neck, lapping at his skin again with that rough, sandpaper tongue. Hannibal groans as Will pulls nearly all the way off his shaft before slamming his hips back down, the sound obscene in the grave-like silence of the house. It doesn’t feel like sadism so much as pure, unadulterated, and possessive love, and Hannibal finds himself unwilling to reject it. 

He picks up his own pace, meeting each lazy grind of Will’s body with a harsh thrust of his own, the blood staining his thighs catching in the fine hair there and spilling down the sides. They’ll have to take the couch, he isn’t even sure burning it along with the house will be enough to hide any DNA evidence. 

“Fuck me, baby, like we both know you can, how we know you want  _ to.”  _ Will’s purring taunt is a teasing lilt, his breath warm as Hellfire against Hannibal’s exposed throat. Hannibal finds he rather enjoys the sweet sound of the endearment, like arsenic-laced sugar water as it spills as easily as breathing from Will’s lips. 

Will’s fingers tighten enough in the leash that the knuckles go white with the strain, and Hannibal doesn’t fight the impediment to his airflow this time, leans into it instead. The blissful, pleased look on Will’s face is enough to pull Hannibal’s lips back from his teeth, the flash of gold he sees in Will’s eyes reflecting, he’s sure, off his own ink-black pupils. 

He sinks his fingers into Will’s skin, leaving impressions from the force of his hold, keeping him steady as he pistons into him. He knows he could make this even better for Will if they were on a bed, if he could press him into silk sheets and make him scream and writhe in pleasure. But he can do well enough just like this, held down by Will’s weight on his lap and nearly vibrating with the impact of their bodies. 

Hannibal shifts just enough that the angle changes and Will  _ keens,  _ a smile lifting Hannibal’s lips up at the corners as he watches his eyes flutter in pleasure as Hannibal slams into his prostate over and over again. Will’s cock is hard and leaking between them, but when Hannibal moves to wrap his hand around it, realizing the need for some expediency if they plan to make it out of this situation free men, Will slaps his palm away. 

“No, not yet. You come first, wanna feel it inside.” Will’s voice is strong, but Hannibal can hear the faintest whine in it, the strain evidently getting to his little empath more than he would have Hannibal see. 

“You’re torn, darling boy. If I fuck you much harder, if I  _ mark you inside,  _ it will hurt,” Hannibal observes, not moving to cease his motions or truly try to talk Will out of it, more simply making him aware. 

_ “I know,”  _ Will’s voice is more animal growl than human, his eyes flashing a pure molten gold again and his teeth expanding in his too-wide mouth. He looks like some creature of old, something that predates the gods or titans or man. Hannibal has never wanted him more desperately. 

He shifts again so that his cock is filling Will up thickly but with less constant pressure on his spot, willing to draw this out for as long as his mate requires. Hannibal’s own orgasm is teetering on a precipice, and he’s mere moments from stumbling over the edge and falling into it. If only Will permits him his release. 

“Will.” His voice shakes with a thin tremble as his stomach clenches and his thighs flex, his entire body on a razor-fine line and ready to snap. 

Will starts up a mantra of  _ not yet not yet not yet,  _ and Hannibal complies, never stopping his pace and grinding himself into Will’s open, still unyielding body. It still hurts, even after so many minutes, the pressure around his cock nearly suffocating. 

Finally,  _ “ _ Come for me _.” _ The command is evident, and Hannibal is helpless but to obey, feeling as though his orgasm is ripped from his body rather than the usual pleasant sensation of falling into it. 

Will goes still, grabs Hannibal’s chin and forces his head back, forces him to bare his throat as Will settles hard and  _ bites _ . It feels like a spur to his side, his orgasm not fading in a swift and dramatic decline as it normally does, but pleasure whiting him out again. He wraps his arms around Will, digs nails into his shoulders and moans, loudly, as he floods Will with his release.

Will’s body is as greedy and possessive of this as it has been the whole time. Hannibal cannot help imagining how Will might behave if he were able to sire a child with him, to plant a legacy in Will’s belly and see him grow feral with maternal protectiveness. How might he hunt, and slaughter, and love when he’s as full as Hannibal can make him.

His mouth, previously so dry, floods with saliva. He runs his hands through Will’s blood-soaked hair, petting his mate as Will bites and kisses and nuzzles his throat, teeth sinking into his skin again and again as Will grinds himself down on Hannibal’s cock. He can feel it, feel how Will’s muscles spasm and clench in pain with every fresh wave.

Will snarls, nips lightly at Hannibal’s jaw, and pulls back. His mouth is bloody and his smile is wide and sharp. “Good boy,” he purrs, cupping Hannibal’s chin with a delicacy that has been absent until now. He pushes himself to his feet, not even a little unsteady, his hard cock jutting proudly and leaking. As soon as Hannibal’s body parts from his, his thighs grow wet, streaking pink-white, gushing come. The scent of it clogs Hannibal’s lungs, and he breathes in raggedly, sitting forward when Will grins at him and gives him a firm tug on his leash.

He palms the back of Hannibal’s head and steps forward. “Open your mouth,” he demands, and Hannibal obeys, lashes fluttering closed as Will forces his cock between Hannibal’s teeth. He sinks deep immediately, Hannibal’s throat spasming around the intrusion.

He hears a slick noise, and Will pulls back so Hannibal can merely suck on the head of his cock, keeping it warm and clean as he licks precum from the tip. Will has his other hand behind him, and when he brings it into Hannibal’s view, his fingers are sticky and drip release like spiderwebs.

Will laughs, and it’s cruel and soft and delighted. “Look at that,” he breathes, and yanks Hannibal off him. He shoves his fingers into Hannibal’s mouth instead, making him lick the blood and come off of them. Hannibal moans as Will’s fingers roughly scrape the wounds on the inside of his mouth, pet the back of his tongue, bruise his tender uvula and tonsils. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Survival of the species, right? If only you  _ could  _ breed me up.”

It’s not a fantasy Hannibal has ever entertained, but the images in his brain that came for him like hunting dogs when he emptied himself inside of Will are still there, snarling and hungry. He makes a noise that’s not quite a growl, plugged as he is. 

Will laughs again and drags his fingers out, hooks them behind Hannibal’s bottom teeth and uses the grip to tilt his face up. “Don’t worry, darlin’, you’re more than welcome to try again after I’m done with you.”

Will steps back, and yanks Hannibal to his feet. He’s unsteady and off-kilter and grabs for Will’s shirt to balance. Its existence offends him, denying him access to Will’s lovely skin and powerful body. Will smiles, and cups his face with his free hand, still sticky and smeared with come. He kisses, so tender and soft that it drives Hannibal mad.

“Turn around,” Will breathes, smiling widely. There is a shark lurking beneath the ocean in his eyes, guarding the promise of gold. Hannibal obeys, shedding the rest of what remains of his clothes and turning his back on Will. A trusting move, but no more so than showing his belly and throat, which he has already done in spades.

Will mouths at his shoulder, and presses against him, hard cock rutting between Hannibal’s thighs, strong hands smoothing across his shoulders and dragging nails along his biceps. He purrs, a thing more sensation than sound against Hannibal’s back.

“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmurs, almost too quietly to hear. Then, louder; “Bend over.”

Hannibal closes his eyes, and climbs back onto the couch, his knees on the cushion and his forearms braced along the back of it. Will pets down his back, greedily paws at his ass, his thighs, his softened and sensitive cock so that Hannibal flinches and hisses in protest.

He earns another slap, for that, on his ass, and a fierce tug on the leash. “Careful,” he warns. “I don’t tolerate that kind of shit from my dogs, I’m not going to take it from you.”

Hannibal presses his lips together, huffs in displeasure. He is  _ far  _ different than one of Will’s dogs, even with the leash and collar and Will’s commands guiding him this way and that. Will might be the one in control right now, but he got that by taking Hannibal by surprise. He will find that, once they have moved on, Hannibal is far from passive.

Will’s hand slides up his spine, curls in his hair and yanks his head up. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” he says, laughing, and bites the arch of Hannibal’s ear. “Thinking too much, clearly you need more.”

The fingers of his other hand press, taunting, at Hannibal’s entrance.

“You need more, don’t you, baby?”

Hannibal shivers, and nods. If nothing else, he wants to see this to completion.

“I should make you beg,” Will rasps. He plants a kiss to Hannibal’s blood-smeared hair, then his shoulder, then the center of his back. “I should claw and cut that arrogance out of you. Stupid, letting you fuck me first, but that’s what I get.”

His tongue, barbed and sharp, licks at the very base of Hannibal’s spine. Hannibal tenses, and turns to look over his shoulder. If Will tries to fuck him dry, Hannibal will certainly protest. Of course he would -. Maybe he would.

Will smiles, catlike and wide and so, so sharp. His fingers, still petting over Hannibal’s hole, slide down and away. He reaches behind himself to scoop more leaking release from between his thighs.

Then, his tongue comes out. It’s sharp and bloody and immediately digs into Hannibal’s tender flesh, ripping through his rim. Hannibal tenses up and whines, high and sudden, pain running up his spine like a shot of lightning. 

“ _ Will _ ,” he breathes, the name punched out of him.

Will grins. “Sorry baby, but you knew what you were in for.” He slides his wet fingers up and shoves two of them into Hannibal, with no care for easing him in or stretching him out. His tongue curls around them, scratching Hannibal open, making him bleed. “All those creatures you killed, all that study and dissection. Am I your first?”

It’s a taunt. “I never -. Every person is different.”

Will’s laugh is soft and pleased. “So that’s a ‘yes’, then,” he purrs, sounding pleased by that. He curls his fingers, petting back until they’re almost out, before shoving in again. Despite the pain, Will’s fingers are skilled and knowing, and Hannibal’s stomach clenches as, within the pain, pleasure swirls like a fissure in the foundations of a house. Like water in whiskey.

This time, the noise he lets out is desperate and helpless, and makes Will snarl.

Hannibal tries to spread his thighs wider apart to tempt Will, and the clear, animal need thrumming through his entire body seems to be enough to draw Will closer, a wolf sniffing out his territory. Will drapes himself over Hannibal’s back, rutting near mindlessly between Hannibal’s legs. Will’s cock brushes against Hannibal’s abused, sluggishly bleeding rim and he growls, low and warning. 

“You’ll take what I give you, Hannibal. And you’ll thank me for it,” Will’s voice rumbles, part purr and part menacing animalistic snarl as he finally forces himself into Hannibal’s body with little in the way of warning. Hannibal’s flesh parts for him unwillingly, pulling a near sob of sound from Hannibal’s throat. 

He tries to pull away from Will instinctually, and Will only tightens his grasp on the leash he still holds, keeps Hannibal held steady where he wants him.  _ “Will.”  _ Hannibal has never felt so full, so breathless before, and his mind rushes to keep up with the sensations, now mostly faded to only pain. 

“Shh, sweetheart. Just let me in, let me have you.” Will’s words are soothing but his tone is incensing, Hannibal’s body curling into Will’s thrusts but also trying desperately to pull away. He can’t go far with the leash connecting him to Will, and he doesn’t truly want to. Hannibal long ago elevated his mind to be above such banal things as pain or hunger. It only took one long winter where Hannibal’s stomach felt like a black maw, an empty cavern, for him to learn to ignore bodily sensations.

But this is something wholly other, unignorable the way Will moves inside of him like he belongs there, like Hannibal is nothing more than a warm hole for him to bury himself within. Hannibal tries to relax his muscles, willing his rim to go pliant and allow Will’s intrusion to be less impeded. 

It works, his muscles going lax enough that Will’s next inward thrust, while still painful, is less searing. The pace Will sets soon after is cruel, though not intentionally so. Hannibal can sense that Will is nearly overwhelmed despite his seemingly nonchalant demeanor, and it brings a smile curling to Hannibal’s lips between one panted breath and the next. 

“You like seeing me so indisposed, thoroughly ruffled and brought to heel beneath you,” Hannibal taunts, arches his spine so that Will’s cock shifts  _ just so,  _ sliding along his inner walls and hitting his prostate head on. 

“No, never brought to heel. I don’t want to domesticate you, Hannibal.” Will’s voice echoes in Hannibal’s ear, the layering returning as he loses some of his composure. 

“What, exactly, do you want, dear Will?” Hannibal slams himself back into Will’s thrusts, bruising himself on Will’s sharp hips but uncaring about the damage. 

The sound Will makes at his inquiry has Hannibal recalling the flash of metallic, molten gold in the empath’s eyes and he’s sure that if he could see Will’s face he would look more animal than man, his Ghoulish features thrown to the forefront. 

“Our lines are blurred, Hannibal. I want nothing less than  _ everything.”  _ Will forces his cock even deeper into Hannibal and Hannibal moans as Will’s free hand finds his hip, his nails digging in. “Stay still,” Will growls, and Hannibal can feel the pure heat of Will, the sharp flex of his cock as he comes inside of Hannibal.

It stings, Will’s come spilling thick and warm inside his torn body. Hannibal hisses and shows his teeth against the couch cushion, focused mostly on keeping his breathing steady as WIll’s hips flex and twitch against his ass, as though trying, always, to drive deeper. 

Will sighs, gentling his grip on Hannibal’s hip and leash, loosening both at once. It feels like tearing sutures from a wound; Hannibal can suddenly breathe so easily he gets a rush from the influx of oxygen, a near euphoric state that he’s sure can only partly be blamed on his freed throat.

Will lays over him again, purring loud, his hands petting Hannibal’s chest, nails in his hair, one hand flattening over a nipple to tease and twist it mercilessly as his other hand slides down and wraps around Hannibal’s softened cock, still dribbling pathetically from Will’s skilled fucking. Hannibal shudders as more sensitive nerve endings are found and tormented, causing him to arch back into Will, against Will, friction and heat making his legs go weak.

Will noses at his neck and sighs. “I’ll get you on a bed next time, darlin’,” he promises. “Make you beg for me for real.”

Hannibal pushes himself upright when Will pulls back, and drops to his knees, spreading Hannibal out, his barbed tongue licking at the mess that spills from Hannibal’s bloody rim. Despite Will’s grip on him, which is firm and clawed, Hannibal turns and grabs Will’s hair, shoving him down onto the floor.

He straddles Will’s chest and Will grins up at him. “Do you think it will be so easy the second time?” Hannibal demands, and reaches for the fastening of the collar, unlatching it and letting it fall. Will’s eyes, molten gold and storm-tossed oceans, fall to the ring of red around his throat. 

His smile is wide and sharp at the edges. “Won’t it?” he purrs, sliding his hands up Hannibal’s thighs, up his belly. He pinches Hannibal’s nipples again and rears up, stronger than Hannibal anticipated, until Hannibal is in his lap and Will can embrace him. He bites at Hannibal’s pectoral muscle and licks over the stinging mark an instant later. 

He touches Hannibal’s sore rim, sinking two fingers inside, making Hannibal hiss and grab at his hair, as though that will do anything. Will’s eyes flash in pleasure even as Hannibal yanks his head back, and tilts his face up.

Will grins at him with bloody teeth. “I can keep killing for you, if that’s what you want,” he purrs. “I know their scent, now.”

“You should,” Hannibal breathes, their foreheads touching. Will’s fingers continue to pet inside him, idly, keeping the pain sharp and crackling down his spine like lightning. “You share it.”

“Mm.” Will’s lashes go low. He cups Hannibal’s skull and kisses him, and his fingers finally, blessedly, slip free. “You made it worse,” he says. Hannibal nods - he suspected. Will certainly showed no signs of this secondary nature until he began eating at Hannibal’s table. With how much he eats, and how frequently, it’s no wonder he devolved so quickly.

“Do you blame me for your nature, Will?” Hannibal asks, smiling. “Is this violent consummation a punishment?”

Will’s tongue stings Hannibal’s lower lip when he kisses again, hungrily, eager to abrade Hannibal’s skin and bring his own blood to the surface. Hannibal has yet to study the mating instincts in a live Ghoul, and wonders how much of this is Will’s innate monstrous nature, and how much of it is purely him.

“Not a punishment,” Will confesses. “I...saw you, and something snapped. Some chain around my neck fell free.” He shivers, and flattens a hand on Hannibal’s chest, sticky and smearing blood and come. “I thought I would die if I didn’t touch you. If another second passed without me inside you.”

The words are honest, probably more honest than Will has ever been with him. Hannibal smiles and gentles the hands in Will’s hair, slides them to his powerful jaws and down his tense neck. 

“You are beautiful,” he breathes. Will smiles. Whatever violent nature spurred him to such primal passion, it is clearly sated now. The monster is no longer quite so hungry. Just like when he feeds Will at his table, the notion of satisfying Will with his body is a pleasing one, and fills him with warmth.

“There are others,” Will says. 

Hannibal nods.

“You’re not going to stop.”

“Would you like me to?” Hannibal asks, genuinely curious. At no point has Will shown revulsion over his kills, his acts of necessary cruelty to harvest and dissect and study. Even before he knew they belonged to Hannibal.

Will shakes his head. He tilts into Hannibal’s touch, a soft rumble in his chest as Hannibal pets his messy, soaked hair from his face. “I want to help,” he whispers. His fingers curl to a fist on Hannibal’s chest. 

Hannibal smiles, and kisses his darling creature’s sweaty brow. “I gladly accept your help, then, my dear boy.” Will nudges his nose to Hannibal’s red neck, and Hannibal stands, wincing as the aches and pains in his body make themselves known. Will moves stiffly as well, as Hannibal helps him to his feet.

He looks around the room. There is far too much blood to clean, not to mention their own body fluids dripping onto the floor was water from a leaking roof. 

Will laughs, realizing this at the same time. He takes Hannibal’s hand and laces their fingers together. “I came prepared,” he says, and goes to the bag he took the collar and leash from. There are two large metal containers inside, and Hannibal’s nostrils flare at the scent of gasoline.

He laughs. “Shall we burn it all to the ground, Will?”

“And rise from the ashes,” Will replies, smiling. “I understand if you want to wait outside. The smell isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“Nonsense.” Hannibal holds his hand out for the second container, and Will gives it to him with a smile. “As you said; our lines have blurred. Whatever pursuits await us, we will face them together.”

Will’s eyes, still with that lovely gold, pupils wide like a contented cat, shine with adoration. He approaches Hannibal and kisses him deeply. His tongue, still barbed, is gentle in comparison to all they have done thus far. 

“Together, then,” Will vows, and parts from Hannibal with one last chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Let’s get started.”


End file.
